Until the late 1980s

Ø business school curricula emphasized the technical aspects of

management, focusing on economics, accounting, finance, and quantitative
techniques.
Ø human behavior and people skills received relatively less attention.
Since then
Ø business schools have realized the significant role that interpersonal skills
play in determining a manager’s effectiveness.

In fact, a survey of over 2,100 CFOs across 20 industries

indicated that a lack of inter personal skills is the top
reason why some employees fail to advance.
Incorporating OB principles into the workplace can yield many important
organizational outcomes.
Ø companies known as good places to work—
h ave b e e n fo u n d t o g e n e r at e s u p e r i o r
financial performance
Ø helps organizations attract and keep high
Ø str ong associations exist between the
quality of wor kplace relationships and
employee job satisfaction, str ess, and
turnover.
 Managers
ü they get things done through other people.
ü they make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of
others to attain goals.
ü they are sometimes called administrators, especially in nonprofit
organizations.
Organization
Ø coordinated social unit composed of two or more people, that functions
on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of
goals.
1.Planning
2.Organizing
3.Leading
4.Controlling
 1. PLANNING
ü defining an organization’s goals,
ü establishing an overall strategy for achieving those goals, and
ü developing a comprehensive set of plans to integrate and
coordinate activities.
 2. ORGANIZING
ü engage in designing their work unit’s structure
Ø determining what tasks are to be done,
Ø who is to do them,
Ø how the tasks are to be grouped,
Ø who reports to whom, and
Ø where decisions are to be made
 3. LEADING
ü to direct and coordinate those people,
ü motivate employees,
ü direct their activities,
ü select the most effective communication channels, or resolve
conflicts,
 4. CONTROLLING
ü monitor the organization’s performance and compare it with
previously set goals.
ü If there are any significant deviations, it is management’s job to
get the organization back on track.
ü This monitoring, comparing, and potential correcting is the
controlling function.
Henry Mintzberg is a management expert, author and
academic.
1. Interpersonal Roles
Ø Figurehead role All managers are required to perform duties
that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature.
Ø Leadership role. This role includes hiring, training, motivating,
and disciplining employees.
Ø Liaison role, or contacting and fostering relationships with others
who provide valuable information. Maintain a network of outside
contacts who provide favors and information
2. Informational Roles
Ø Monitor role To some degree, all managers collect information
from outside organizations and institutions, typically by scanning
the news media and talking with other people to learn of changes
in the public’s tastes and what competitors may be planning.
Ø Disseminator role. Managers also act as a conduit to transmit
information to organizational members.
Ø Spokesperson role. Transmits information to outsiders on
organization’s plans, policies, actions and results. They represent
the organization to outsiders.
3. Decisional Roles
Ø Entrepreneur role. Managers initiate and oversee new projects
that will improve their organization’s performance.
Ø Disturbance role. Managers take corrective action in response
to unforeseen problems.
Ø Resource allocators. Managers are responsible for allocating
human, physical, and monetary resources.
Ø Negotiator role. They discuss issues and bargain with other
units (internal or external) to gain advantages for their own unit.
 Management Skills
Technical Skills
Ø the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.
Examples: skills of professionals such as civil engineers or oral
surgeons, you typically focus on the technical skills they have
learned through extensive formal education.
Human Skills
Ø The ability to understand, communicate with, motivate, and support other
people, both individually and in groups, defines human skills .
Ø Many people may be technically proficient but poor listeners, unable to
understand the needs of others, or weak at managing conflicts.
Ø Managers must have good human skills because they need to get things
done through other people.
 Management Skills
Conceptual Skills
Ø Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose
complex situations.
Ø Decision making, for instance, requires managers to identify
problems, develop alternative solutions to correct those problems,
evaluate those alternative solutions, and select the best one.
Major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB

q Psychology
Ø Psychology seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes
change the behavior of humans and other animals.

Ø Contributors to the knowledge of OB are learning

theorists; personality theorists; counseling
psychologists; and, most important, industrial and
organizational psychologists.
Major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB

q Social Psychology
Ø S ocial psychology , g e n e ra l l y c o n s i d e re d a b ra n c h o f
psychology, blends concepts from both psychology and
sociology to focus on people’s influence on one another.
Ø Social psychologists also contribute to measuring,
understanding, and changing attitudes; identifying
communication patterns; and building trust. They have made
important contributions to our study of group behavior, power,
and conflict.
Major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB

q Sociology
Ø While psychology focuses on the individual, sociology studies
people in relation to their social environment or culture.
Ø Sociologists have contributed to OB through their study of
group behaviors in organizations, particularly formal and
complex organizations. Perhaps most important, sociologists
have studied organizational culture, formal organization theory
and structure, organizational technology, communications,
power, and conflict.
Major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB

q Anthropology
Ø Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings
and their activities.
Ø Anthropologists’ work on cultures and environments has helped us
understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes, and
behavior among people in different countries and within different
organizations.
 Challenges and Opportunities

A. Economic Pressures
Ø Managing employees well when times are tough is just as hard as
when times are good, if not harder.
Ø In good times, understanding how to reward, satisfy, and retain
employees is at a premium.
Ø In bad times, issues like stress, decision making, and coping come
to the forefront.

B. Continuing Globalization
The world has become a global village. In the process, the manager’s
job has changed. Effective managers anticipate and adapt their
approaches to the global issues
 Challenges and Opportunities

C. Increased Foreign Assignments

Ø Yo u a r e i n c r e a s i n g l y l i k e l y t o f i n d y o u r s e l f i n a f o r e i g n
assignment—transferred to your employer’s operating division or
subsidiary in another country.
Ø Once there, you’ll have to manage a workforce with very different
needs, aspirations, and attitudes than those you are used to back
home.
Ø To be effective, you will need to understand everything you can
a b o u t y o u r n e w l o c a t i o n ’s c u l t u r e a n d w o r k f o r c e — a n d
demonstrate your cultural sensitivity—before introducing alternate
practices.
 Challenges and Opportunities

Ø Working with People from Different Cultures

To work effectively with people from different cultures, you need to
understand how their culture and background have shaped them and
how to adapt your management style to fit any differences.

Ø Overseeing Movement of Jobs to Countries with Low-Cost

Managers face the difficult task of balancing the interests of their
organizations with their responsibilities to the communities in which
they operate.
 Challenges and Opportunities

Ø Adapting to Differing Cultural and Regulatory Norms

Ø To be effective, managers need to know the cultural norms of the
workforce in each country where they do business.
Ø For instance, a large percentage of the workforce enjoys long
holidays in some countries.
Ø There will be country and local regulations to consider, too.
 Challenges and Opportunities

A. Workforce Demographics
ü The workforce has always adapted to variations in economies,
longevity and birth rates, socioeconomic conditions, and other
changes that have widespread impact.
ü As students of OB, we can investigate what factors lead
employees to make various choices and how their experiences
affect their perceptions of their workplaces. This understanding can
help us predict organizational outcomes.
 Challenges and Opportunities

D. Workforce Diversity
ü One of the most important challenges for organizations is
workforce diversity , a trend by which organizations are becoming
more heterogeneous in terms of employees’ gender, age, race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics.

ü OB can provide considerable guidance in helping managers create

such cultures—in which employees establish rapport with
customers, put customers at ease, show genuine interest, and are
sensitive to a customer’s individual situation.
 Challenges and Opportunities

E. People Skills
Ø gain insights into specific people skills you can use on the
job.

Ø learn ways to design motivating jobs, techniques for

improving your management skills, and how to create
more effective teams.
 Challenges and Opportunities

F. Networked Organizations
ü Networked organizations allow people to communicate and work
together even though they may be thousands of miles apart.
ü Motivating and leading people and making collaborative decisions
online require different techniques than when individuals are
physically present in a single location.
ü As more employees do their jobs by linking to others through
networks, managers must develop new skills.
 Challenges and Opportunities

G.Social Media
Ø Despite its pervasiveness, many organizations continue to struggle
with employees’ use of social media in the workplace.
Ø Once employees are on the job, many organizations have policies
about accessing social media at work—when, where, and for what
purposes.
Ø Managers—and the field of OB—are trying to increase employee
satisfaction and therefore improve and enhance positive
organizational outcomes.
 Challenges and Opportunities

H. Employee Well-Being at Work

Ø The typical employee in the 1960s and 1970s showed up at a
specified workplace Monday through Friday and worked for clearly
defined 8- or 9-hour chunks of time.
Ø That’s no longer true for a large segment of today’s workforce
because the definition of the workplace has expanded to include
anywhere a laptop or smartphone can go.
Ø Even if employees work flexible hours at home or from half a
continent away, managers still need to consider their well-being at
work.